Our Team

Brord and Will, co-founders of Pangea Chat, working in “some cafe” in Barcelona

What’s Pangea Chat’s story?

Pangea Chat began in 2017 when Will Jordan-Cooley moved to Barcelona seeking adventure and suddenly had a personal need to learn Spanish. As an instructional designer and technologist, he was disappointed with available methods of language learning which forced him to learn first and communicate later. With natural language processing rapidly progressing and his background creating experiential learning, he envisioned a tool which could both enable a beginner’s conversations and guide them to proficiency.

Since then, the Pangea Chat team has grown to an all-star team of designers, developers, researchers and entrepreneurs. We have been designing, testing and iterating around the core concept of learning a language while texting with friends. We are driven by the belief that we can use AI and game design to connect the world across language barriers.

Will Jordan-Cooley (he/him)

Founder & CEO

Masters in Instructional Technology and Media from Teachers College Columbia University and graduate work on NSF-funded climate change education. 10 years in Edtech designing educational experiences for industry leaders like BrainPOP, Nickelodeon, and Discovery Education. Created and led the design consultancy, Learn Play Games. Strong technical background with a bachelor’s in Applied Mathematics from William and Mary, published work in theoretical biology, and 5+ years experience developing games and mobile applications

Gabby Gurdin (she/her)

Gabby is a frontend flutter developer here at Pangea Chat. She graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with her B.S. in Computer Science in 2022.

Brord Van Wierst (he/him)

Software Engineer

Brord is a software engineer with experience in frontend game and mobile development as well as backend experimental database and authentication methods.

Wilson Le (he/him)

Wilson Le is a software engineer with a focus on backend engineering, mainly using Python. He graduated from Denison University with a B.S. in Computer Science in 2024, bringing a solid foundation to his work.

Daniel Isbell, PhD (he/him)

Language Learning and Assessment Advisor

Isbell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is a language tester, applied linguist and teacher. His primary areas of research are language assessment and instructed second language acquisition, and developing a richer interface between the two.